As a captain, Tav is like me. He’s not going to scream and shout... but he leads by example
IBROX GREAT GOUGH REVEALS IMMENSE PRIDE AT WATCHING TAVERNIER ‘LEARN WHAT IT IS TO BE A RANGERS SKIPPER’
LEADERSHIP can take many forms. James Tavernier may not be every supporter’s idea of the identikit Rangers captain, but any lingering debate over the Yorkshireman’s suitability for the role will surely be put to bed if he lifts the Europa League trophy in Seville on Wednesday.
As Richard Gough points out, he didn’t necessarily fit the prescribed image of a Rangers skipper either.
Although nobody would ever have questioned the steely resolve of the club’s Nine-in-a-Row captain, Gough was not a ranter or raver, instead preferring to lead by example.
That’s a tendency shared with Tavernier, who has held the armband for nearly four years following his promotion by the incoming manager Steven Gerrard in 2018.
Since then, the full-back has been a consistent, productive performer for the club from right-back yet he has a low hit rate when it comes to hoisting silverware.
Excellent in the team’s title-winning campaign last year, Tavernier nevertheless entered a closed-door season under a cloud after penning some programme notes immediately before the pandemic that questioned his team’s ability to stand up to domestic opponents.
Gough winced when he read those comments but knew that it would
not be the words
Wing-back suits him. His forward play is far greater than his defending
themselves but Tavernier’s reaction to the fall-out that would define the 30-year-old’s captaincy.
‘Tav did that in the programme and realised quite quickly that that’s not actually what the supporters want to hear,’ says Gough. ‘The team wasn’t doing too well at that time but since then they have all learned what it is to be a Rangers player.
‘Connor Goldson did something similar after the Hibs game in this season’s League Cup when he said the game was done by half-time.
‘He later realised he shouldn’t have said that but we all make mistakes. Both players have come out the other side and proved they can handle the jersey pretty well.
‘They have been two of our best players, funnily enough since those remarks, which shows that they know what it’s all about.’
A consummate politician, Gough never misspoke in the manner of Tavernier and Goldson but despite his at-times Herculean performances for the club at centre-back, he was not immune to the disapproval of the Ibrox crowd.
‘It’s a hard crowd to play for,’ he admits. ‘I used to have three or four bad passes in a game and I would get criticised as a Rangers captain.
‘It’s the best crowd in the world if you are doing well. It was just spine-tingling on the night of the semi-final.
‘As a captain, Tav is actually a wee bit like me. He is not going to scream and shout at people, he leads by example which is what I tried to do.
‘For me, the most important thing was trying to help the players round about me. He does that in his own way — because they all look for him to pass the ball.’
As Gough (right) suggests, it’s as a rampaging right-back that Tavernier offers so much to this Rangers team.
A naturally-strong athlete with boundless energy and impeccable technique for crossing the ball, Tavernier is an indispensable creative outlet for this Rangers team.
He also has an eye for goal. Yes, he’s tucked away an abnormally high number of penalties but his stats from open play are pretty special, too, and he currently tops the scorers’ chart in the Europa League.
Borussia Dortmund, Braga and RB Leipzig have all suffered for the impeccable timing of Tavernier’s arrival at the back post — and his ability to convert those chances when they come.
‘I played right-back myself, so I know about that,’ continued Gough. ‘When we won the league in 1982-83 at Dundee United, I scored ten goals. To do that, you have to make runs into the box.
‘I scored the famous one against England for Scotland in ’85 and people said: “What were you doing up there?” I said: “I dunno, I just ran in the box!”
‘You don’t score many from outside the box, so you have to make the runs to get in there.
‘Tavernier does the same, his timing is good and he takes the chances. He has scored seven goals in Europe this season, just taking a chance with the run and then smashing them in.
‘That’s why the role of wing-back suits him. His attacking prowess is far greater than the defensive work he does in his own box.’
Yet even in that regard, Gough detects a significant level of improvement in Tavernier. He continued: ‘I watch players carefully and it’s struck me how well Tav has been defending. He has been outrageous, really.
‘Previously he’d get caught at the back post with headers, stupid things, but that’s not been happening lately.
‘The main thing is his ability. I watch him receive the ball and there are times I think he is going to lose it. But he doesn’t.’ If Tavernier’s turnaround has been a slow-burning affair, John Lundstram has altered early perceptions in rapid time.
The Englishman wrote himself into Ibrox folklore with the goal that clinched Rangers’s semi-final victory over RB Leipzig but just a few short months ago it was hard to see him forcing his way back into the team, far less consolidate his status as a cult hero among the fans. Signed by Gerrard on a free from Sheffield United, Lundstram’s early-season performances had a lumbering, underwhelming quality.
As the Scouser struggled to cope with the transition from the English Premier League, Gough felt his pain. He recalls his own initial struggles in Glasgow after Graeme Souness signed him from
Tottenham Hotspur in the mid-eighties.
He eventually found his groove, as has the 27-year-old Lundstram, now an established driving force in the middle of the park for Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
As the Rangers support hit their phones to make travel plans for Spain and a showdown with Eintracht Frankfurt, Gough and Lundstram shared a quiet moment in the bowels of Ibrox.
‘I came up here a long time ago, October 1987, and it took me a wee while to settle,’ says Gough. ‘I’d been the captain of Tottenham, so I was quite experienced, but I had too get used to Ibrox.
‘John said to me: “You’re right Goughie, it’s taken me a wee while to get used to everything”.
‘It was hard for me so I know how it felt. Very rarely do you find someone who comes in at Rangers or Celtic and hits the ground running.
‘Some manage it. But look at even someone like Henrik Larsson, it took him six months or so to get used things.
‘The last three months of the season, Lundstram has had a change of confidence. That wasn’t there when he came in.
‘And I see it in Calvin Bassey, too. He has been playing out his skin in the last three months. Is that something Gio has done?
‘I don’t know but it has been tremendous watching those two in particular, and how much they have progressed.’